Download PDF - Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology

46
H YPNO TISM
"In passing into natural sleep, anything held in the
hand is soon allowed to drop from our grasp, but in the
artificial slee now referred to, it will be held much more
firmly than before falling asleep. This is a very remarkable
difference.
"The power'of balancing themselves is so great that I
have never seen one of these hypnotic somnambulists fall.
The same is noted of natural somnambulists. This is a
remarkable fact, and would appear to occur in this way,
that they acquire the centre of gravity, as if by instinct, in
the most natural, and therefore, in the most graceful manner,
and if allowed to remain in this position they will speedily
become cataleptiform and immovably fixed. From observing
these two facts, and the general tendency and taste for
dancing displayed by most patients on hearing lively music
during hypnotism, the peculiarly graceful and appropriate
movement of many when thus excited, and the varied and
"elegant postures they may be made to assume by slight
currents of air, and the faculty of retaining any position
with so much ease, I have hazarded the opinion that the
Greeks may have been indebted to Hypnotism for the
perfection of their Sculpture, and the fakirs of India for
their wonderful feats of suspending their bodies by a leg
or an arm.
"It thus clearly appears that it differs from common
sleep in many respects, that there is first a state of
excitement as with opium and wine, and spirits, and
afterwards a state of corresponding deep depression or
torpor.
EFFECT OF HYPNOTISM.
"The tactual .sensibility is so great that the slightest
touch is felt. The sense of heat, cold and resistance are